The life of an average girl turned marathoner

I’m going to Ottawa!

So apparently I’ve been bitten by the marathon bug. What was supposed to be my “tick off the bucket list one and only marathon” has become my “first marathon” and this year promises to be another busy one with a lot of plans in the works already.

So far I’ve signed up for Around the Bay 30k on March 29th and I’ve also committed myself to the Ottawa Marathon on May 24th. I’m not sure which came first but they actually fit really well together. The training program I’m following has a 29km run scheduled for March 29th so I’ll probably try and run that race as a training run. Hey, if you have to run 29km, you might as well do it in a race with a few thousand people right?

I’m really excited to be running Ottawa as my second marathon. The Ottawa Half Marathon was my second half marathon which I ran in 2012 and I really loved it. The city makes a whole weekend of it with races in the 2k, 5k and 10k distances on Saturday afternoon/evening and the half and full marathons take place on Sunday morning. A ton of people come out to participate, and to watch all the races. The course is nice, has pretty great crowd support and has sponge stations. That’s right, sponges filled with cool water just when you need them! Hopefully that hasn’t changed from a few years ago.

Training officially began this past weekend. I’ve been keeping a good base since Chicago, so I’m hoping it’ll be fairly easy to get back into the swing of the 5 day a week running schedule.

I do expect that I’ll have some challenges. Not so much with the winter training. Though I may complain about it at some point, and I am definitely not a winter person, I prefer to run in the winter rather than in the heat of the summer.

The challenges will be in getting the night time training runs in during the week. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it home in time to head to my run club meet-ups so I’ll have someone to run with. I’m fine with running alone, and in fact enjoy a peaceful solo run. But night time running is always safer in a group.

The other challenge will be getting my miles in during a five day trip to Florida in February. We took a similar trip at the same time of year a couple years ago and after training in the cold air, the humidity kicked my butt. I had a hard time running even 5km. The schedule has an 8km, a 6km and a 13km run that weekend.

Whatever challenges come my way, I know that staying focused on my goal, will help me to face them head on.

Meta

I started running in 2011 after losing 80 lbs in an effort to keep it off and get healthy. It didn't take long for me to realize the mental health benefits as well, and I quickly fell in love. Since then, a week hasn't gone by where I haven't laced up and gotten outside to enjoy the fresh air. But like everyone, every now and then I need a little motivation, and so there's always a goal race I'm running towards...